What animal appears on Serbia's coat of arms on its national flag?

Serbia’s coat of arms on its state flag features a double-headed eagle.

The silver Serbian eagle appears on a red shield, with its two heads facing opposite directions. The shield also carries the Serbian cross, a white cross accompanied by four firesteels. A royal crown appears above the shield on the greater coat of arms, giving the state flag a much more detailed design than Serbia’s civil tricolour.

The double-headed eagle has deep medieval associations in Serbian history. It was used by the Nemanjić dynasty and appears in Serbian royal, imperial and ecclesiastical art. The symbol also reflects the wider Byzantine heraldic tradition, where a two-headed eagle represented imperial authority and connections between East and West.

A common mistake is identifying the animal simply as a falcon or eagle without mentioning its defining feature. The quiz’s canonical answer is “double-headed eagle.” Serbia’s plain civil flag has only three horizontal stripes—red, blue and white—whereas the state flag adds the coat of arms near the hoist.